Ask Annie gave us the ‘how’. But what about the ‘who’?

Since Dementia Australia made Ask Annie freely available earlier this year, we have found it to be one of the most accessible and thoughtful ways to build practical dementia care skills.

It is a much-needed resource that fits into the realities of shift work and time pressure.

Ask Annie has helped us learn how to respond. How to choose the right words. How to say things in a way that can calm rather than escalate.

But often, I still find myself without any insights on the person I’m responding to.

Not in a clinical sense. But in a human one.

The missing piece

Care plans typically provide high-level details such as agitation or anxiety, and outline key behaviours of concern.

They may capture routine preferences, like whether someone prefers to eat in their room or what time they like to wake up.

But in the back of an ambulance, or in a busy emergency corridor, we have seen how small details can change everything.

A patient labelled “non-compliant” might simply be someone misunderstood, disoriented, or desperately trying to hold onto a sense of control.

Sometimes it is as simple as knowing her cat’s name was Mittens.Or that “Where’s the Sun?” is not about the weather, but about the newspaper.

Context matters.

Ask Annie has taught us how to say things the right way.But without knowing the right thing to say — which changes from person to person — we often fall short.

Where we go next

Ask Annie has been an important step forward, but we have more to do.

The opportunity now is to better understand the person behind the patient, and make that information accessible to every carer, at the bedside.

Because when we do, maybe we won’t just feel more confident in our skills.We’ll also feel more connected in our care.

Founder Reflection

“I’ve personally found the Dementia Australia Ask Annie solution to be a great training resource, and it has definitely helped me figure out how to provide better care to people living with dementia. The gap we still face though, is knowing the who — the person behind each patient. Those personal insights are so often the missing piece of the puzzle in providing true person-centred care. We’ve made good progress, but there is so much more we can do.” — Paul Murphy